iYuck: Sour Apples

[Seth]

Capitalism cannot exist without creating upward economic mobility because capitalism depends on free-market trade and commerce, and the destitute don't have any money to spend as consumers, so it's always in capitalism's best economic interests to make sure that it's customers have enough disposable income to support commerce. It all balances out very nicely when the markets are left to operate naturally and without redistributive regulation.

Hmmm, very interesting concept "capitalism's best economic interests"

Who or what is this capitalism, that can have interests of its own? Are you absolutely sure you are not bowing to a God here?

It's a semantic shortcut, nothing more. I could have said "it's in the best economic interests of Capitalists, who want to make money, to make sure that their customers have money to spend," but I thought most people here were smart enough to understand such things.

Please excuse me for making that mistake with you.

Didn't some capitalist try to raise his worker's salaries for that very reason, but was stopped from doing so by his company's shareholders on account of it dipped into their profits?

Could be, and justifiably so. Paying workers more than they are worth in the existing labor market is not good business, and CEO's are hired to make profits, not provide social welfare programs for strap-hangers.

Thing is, most corporate capitalists cannot make decisions based on altruism. They must appear to be not too evil, but they have to be as greedy as they can get away with, otherwise they wouldn't be acting with due diligence to maximize shareholder profit.

Yup. It all hinges on the ability of the CEO to make a profit by keeping customers happy. If customers want low prices and nothing else, then that's the CEO's duty. If they have a social conscience and want the company to engage in charitable acts, then that's the CEO's duty. Whatever the customers want is what the CEO must provide in order to make a profit.

There's nothing wrong with greed, it's inherent in every human and it keeps the world turning. The real problem is the typical socialist zero-sum canard that insists that because some CEO is making a bundle, he must be "stealing" it from some poor person, which the CBO report completely debunks. Capitalism is not a zero-sum game, and one person's economic success is not achieved at the expense of someone else's impoverishment. That's just a Marxist lie that Marxists like to trumpet without ever actually trying to defend it...because it's indefensible. They just resort to spouting Marxist platitudes and hurling personal invective to deflect any criticism of Marxism, but they never, ever engage in any critical analysis of their ideology, because to do so is to see the little Marx behind the green curtain and reveal him for the economic idiot he was.

Even if they could, it would still be a bad idea to act in the interest of society as a whole to their competitive disadvantage. It's a machine, and not always a horribly smart one.

Doesn't have to be, it's controlled by outside forces called "consumers."

[Robert_S]

There's more to me than what I consume.

[Ronja]

There's more to me than what I consume.

Most definitely!